The Council formally adopted a Regulation improving the protection of geographical indications and other quality schemes for wines, spirits and agricultural products, both online and offline, while simplifying the registration procedure for geographical indications.
The agreement will bring tangible benefits to the rural economy and protect the EU’s gastronomic heritage around the world.
Improvements to the current geographical indication system include:
- reinforcing the role of producer groups by granting powers and responsibilities to manage their geographical indications, also to represent their members in intellectual and industrial property compliance control networks;
- the possibility for Member States to designate producer groups as “recognized producer groups” with exclusive rights to be exercised on behalf of all producers of the product designated by a geographical indication;
- a Commission-supported role in examining applications for registration of products as geographical indications;
- increased protection of geographical indications, also online, in domain names containing geographical indications, through geo-blocking; To this end, the European Union Intellectual Property Office has been tasked with creating a domain name information and alert system;
- greater protection of the name of a geographical indication designating an ingredient when used in the name of a related processed food; In these cases, recognized producer groups must be notified and the percentage of the ingredient must be indicated.
